2010-07-05 - FYI I Am A Spy
SOME TIME AGO Revive Revival awakes from a trance in which he spent some time in the nude with his twin sister on the astral plane. He has just been informed that there is a Celestial Being traitor hiding within A-LAWS. As he is prone to do, Revive Revival begins the process of fixing this. SOME TIME AGO "This plan is perfect," Leo Stenbuck says to Brough Grabbs. "She'll /love/ me after this." "Uhhh, this sounds more like... terrorizing her until she hates you forever," Brough notes, scratching his cheek and squinting. "You'll see. Have faith in the LEO System." SOME TIME AGO Revive Revival and Louise Halevy are having lunch. "I'm going to be returning to the Shirogane with you," the lavender-haired captain notes, and smiles at the positive effect this has on Louise's demeanor. "I've got some business there. I want you to keep available twenty-four seven. No missions off-ship, nothing that you can't drop when I call. This is important." "Er," Louise says, as Revive begins giving her direct, cryptic orders in a far more straightforward way than he's ever done before. "Y-Yes, Revive." "There's a girl." SOME TIME AGO Leo Stenbuck and 'Kristin Tsery' walk into the rec room on the Shirogane, with Leo holding a box of pizza that he somehow talked the mess hall into making. On the couch in front of the hi-def holofilm entertainment center sits Brough Grabbs, reading a book and wearing a wool cardigan and bookwormy glasses. When Leo tries to usher him out, Brough protests: "But -- I saw a black widow spider in my quarters, and I can't hang out in there." Kristin frowns, and Leo frowns too. "Well," the young captain says thoughtfully, "I guess we could always take the pizza and watch the movie in /my/ quarters..." Brough gives an exaggerated, wide-eyed shrug. SOME TIME AGO Whatever Louise Halevy is doing, it's suddenly not on the docket anymore, as Revive Revival calls her to his temporary office aboard the Shirogane. "Come armed," he is careful to note. SOME TIME AGO Leo Stenbuck and Kristin Tsery are sitting on Leo's bed, watching the movie, eating pizza using the box as a plate. The Neo-Terminator is shooting up a police station for some reason or another, and Kristin looks over to say, tentatively, "This pizza's good." Leo turns to her: "/You're/ good." Kristin glances back over, and her eyes widen behind her sunglasses, arousal taking control as she lunges forward. SOME TIME AGO "The spy was on this very ship," Revive Revival is saying to Louise Halevy, handing her a dossier on Ensign Kristin Tsery, lowly records department clerk, a pretty brunette who's wearing wraparound shades even in her official ID photo. "Her name isn't Kristin Tsery. I don't actually know /what/ her real name is. But among the other aliases she uses..." Revive's red eyes turn toward Louise slowly, followed by the rest of him. He clasps his hands behind his back, and stands very still. He's a very pretty man when he's serious, and right now he's more serious than death itself. "Christina Sierra. Computer hacker. Crew member of the Ptolemaios. Agent of Celestial Being." Revive pauses just a beat before he continues. "Louise, do you know where the computer indicates Kristin Tsery -- Christina Sierra -- is, right now, right this second?" The androgyne doesn't wait for any offered answers. "Leo Stenbuck's quarters." "Go and take care of it for me. There's a girl." NOW As if the fact that a Celestial Being spy is in Leo's quarters isn't suspicious enough, the door to his quarters back in the ass-end of the ship are locked. Leo almost never locks his quarters; he prefers people who have issues to be able to just come to him rather than having to do some sort of terrible red tape dance, and, in his opinion, having an Open Door policy on his quarters (since they double as his office) helps that. Louise, of course, knows the door code. Obviously his girlfriend would know the door code, right? Never mind that Soma and Michael know it, too, and Ralla knew it when she was alive. Double suspicious: there appears to be some sort of noise coming from inside the room. It's faint, and as such it is nigh impossible to make out any details, but it almost sounds like a fight is going on, or an interrogation. Maybe Leo discovered that she was a spy, too? The battle the other night was... definitely not what Marie thought it would be. She didn't want to fight. She doesn't -ever- want to fight. But... orders were orders. This time, though, she obeyed them not because she -had- to, but because she'd be found out if she didn't, and she was still very frightened of being shipped back to the Superhuman Institute to be 'retuned.' Who knows what would happen to her mind if they found out? Of course, certain observant people (and 'cyber-newtypes') have probably already figured it out and are just waiting for the right opportunity to inform -someone-. However, she was saved in that fight. Rather than having to enter the thick of battle, MArie only had to deal with a small obstacle thanks to a certain person. She never really got to thank Leo, so she wanted to come by during her off duty time to tell him that she appreciated how he watched out for her. She didn't expect to find her blonde friend right outside the Captain's quarters, though. "Louise?" In her mind, the list of reasons why Louise would be going to Leo's quarters was very short. "Ah.. If you want to spend time with Leo, I won't get in your way. I just need to talk with him for a minute." She really shouldn't put this off. Louise doesn't waste a second once Revive tells her where Kristin... /Christina/... is. Leo's quarters... why -- maybe she's trying to kill him! Maybe, she thinks, as her heart begins to sink, she already has. Celestial Being -- this would be the second time they tore her happiness to shreds. If so much as a hair on his head is harmed --!! Louise fingers her sidearm once as she nears the door, but doesn't draw it yet; instead, she puts her ear to the door and listens. That noise... maybe Leo got to her first -- or maybe she got to him. Louise leans against the wall just the same, getting ready to engage proper breaching procedure -- -- and Soma... no, Marie, arrives. "Sshhh," she hisses at Marie, trying to remain quiet. "There's a Celestial Being spy." A beat, before she confirms, "In Leo's quarters." On the one hand, the potential for backup is welcome... but on the other hand, she doesn't really want to get Marie involved in this if everything falls apart again. If Marie were to get hurt in a struggle -- then she really /would/ have lost everything to those bastards. "I need you to stay out here for a little while," she says, tapping out the code to Leo's door. "If something sounds like it went wrong, then I need you to come in and help me, but..." She's backup -- Louise can handle this herself, she tells herself, as she finishes the code and moves to enter the room. Marie is probably not ready for the sounds that emerge from the brief second the door is open. They're very sweaty noises. Louise, meanwhile, is probably not ready for the /sight/ she encounters when she enters. In the interest of public decorum there is at least a sheet (mostly) covering them. 'Them,' of course, is Leo Stenbuck and Kristin Tsery, nee Christina Sierra, who are basically breaking all kinds of rules of the setting. You know, fraternization and all that. The logistics are pretty simple -- Kristin is on top, making noises like she was being waterboarded and struggling for breath, and Leo is underneath, which makes him the bottom, although he's more of a power bottom, because of how much power he's giving out. Their clothes are strewn this way and that. Also, weirdly, there's a half-eaten pizza on the floor, flopped out of its box after said container was apparently discarded in a rush. The sound of wet hips slapping against one another slows down when Kristin notices the entrance of Louise, glancing over her shoulder -- "Huh--?" Louise is probably also not ready for Leo's reaction. Rather than reacting like an infidelous man ought to in this situation - or at least usually does - and immediately launching into damage control, after the initial confusion at 'Kristin's' confusion, Leo clumsily props himself up on one elbow to look around her at the door. His expression isn't so much despair as it is surprise. "Wha-" he begins, blinking rapidly. Only after a moment does he conjure up the presence of mind to try to draw the sheets up a little more modestly and bark, "Jesus, you ever hear of knocking?!" "A spy?" Marie blinks several times, but... Celestial Being? Something deep inside of her -twists-. Celestial Being was the enemy. Soma -hated- them. and yet... -he- was a member of that organization, right? They couldn't be all bad... Pressing her lips together, Marie takes a step back and nods. "O.. okay. I'll wait here, just in case." She doesn't like that idea. What if it really is a spy in there? What if they're armed? "Leo could be in trouble..." If he was hurt, she wouldn't be too happy. "Go ahead. But be careful, okay?" If -Louise- was hurt, Marie would really be upset. These two have become some of her only anchors to any sort of real life aboard the Shirogane, frightened as she is to let anyone else know who she really is. When the door opens, and the sounds meet Marie's ears, her eyes slowly widen as she realizes what's going on in there. Her cheeks flush red and she just... stares at the doorway. "Wh.. what..." Forgive her, she's a bit shellshocked. This is not the sort of thing she expected to see and hear when she came by! This is definitely not at all what Louise was expecting when she came in. She opens her mouth as if to speak, but no sound comes out; she moves her lips a couple of times, as if expecting that to solve that problem, but that, too, seems to do very little. Her awareness of Marie falls away. Her hands fall limply to her sides for a second. Her cybernetic hand brushes against her sidearm -- which is the first stimulus that actually gets Louise to focus, fingers curling around it and pulling it back up. "Christina Sierra," she says firmly, pointing the gun at the spy. "Get off of him. You're under arrest." In truth, she has no intention of allowing 'Kristin Tsery' to leave the room -- but even though Leo has once /again/ betrayed her trust, she at least wants to avoid spraying brains all over him. She doesn't acknowledge Leo's half-request, half-frustrated remark. She can deal with him later -- the eradication of Celestial Being takes precedence over all other wants, needs, hopes, aspirations, and desires. Admittedly, this is a pretty awkward situation. The rhythm of what could delicately and artfully be called 'banging' slows to zero, and Christina's shoulders shudder as she, too, tries to cover herself with the sheet, the net effect being something like the wall of an ad-hoc tent. Leo's angry -- makes sense -- but who /is/ this person, and why did they -- oh. /Oh./ Christina's face right now is a very '/Oh./' face, and not in the good way, like you'd want. Flustered and exposed and vulnerable, all Kristin Tsery can think to do is look from Leo to Louise and back, sputtering, "Leo! What's -- What's going on here?!" As soon as the gun comes out, Leo shifts from 'annoyed' to 'oh god what the fuck'. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he cries over Louise's declaration, lifting one hand towards Louise palm-out in the universal gesture for 'hold the fuck on'. As Christina demands to know what's going on, he (with a palpable sense of regreT) worms his way out from underneath her to carry out the dialogues to come with a little more dignity than can be achieved while being straddled, grabbing at as much sheet as he can to cover himself as he struggles into a kneeling position on the bed, one hand still held out towards Louise. "Louise, what the hell are you doing?!" he hisses. "Her name isn't Christina, it's Krstin, and she's not-" Increasingly flustered, Leo forces himself to take a deep breath and tries his Command Voice. "Louise, put the gun down." It takes a few seconds for Marie to snap back to reality... or what she assumes is reality. So many things are happening now that she never expected to happen that it's hard to keep up with things. Stay in the hallway. Marie is supposed to be here, to be backup. But when she hears what's going on in there, she slowly edges closer to the door. There's a gun involved now, so things have suddenly gotten a lot more dangerous. Taking a deep breath, she presses a hand against the wall and slowly peeks around the doorframe, just exposing her head enough so she can see what's going on in there. What she sees renews her blush... but it at least puts her a little bit at ease. With the spy in that state of dress, odds were very good that the only gun in the room within any ease of use was Louise's. This could all go so very cleanly. Louise would arrest the spy and everything would be... well, no. There would probably be Words with Leo, but at least things didn't have to get any messier, right? "She's a spy for Celestial Being, Leo. 'Kristin Tsery' is an alias. ... so is Christina Sierra, but it's the closest thing we have to a name for her. We've already confirmed it," Louise says, trying to keep the fact that as it is she half-wants to kill /Leo/ on top of 'Kristin' (ho ho, double entendre, despite him being on the bottom) from sneaking into her voice. "As for you -- get dressed and get up against the wall." She really does not want to see a member of Celestial Being naked and sheetless -- and besides, it makes it look more like she's going to take her into custody. Louise wants what she's about to do to be as unexpected as possible -- she wants to rip away Christina's life as suddenly as Celestial Being ripped away hers. "Slowly," she adds, voice still firm -- possibly trying to out-Command Leo's Command Voice. "No sudden moves." SOME TIME AGO "What do you do if the jig is up? What do you say?" Sumeragi Lee Noriega is seated amidst the wreckage of her room, slumped to one side so that her elbow is propped up on her cluttered desk, while her rear is rooted in her chair. Her free hand grips a can of beer. She's stinking drunk. Christina Sierra seems unfazed by that fact, as does Feldt Grace, who stands off to one side. Christina, sitting at the foot of Sumeragi's bed, next to the pile of fabric that, when properly arranged, is a set of sheets, draws her mouth into a thin frown and says nothing for several long moments. "'Zactly," Celestial Being's tactical forecaster grunts, and then burps. NOW Christina slash Kristin slowly gets up, keeping her hands in the air, making no false moves except the occasional look of shock over at Leo. Whether it's a guilty look or just an embarrassed one is hard to say -- really, it's just 'the sort of face that someone makes in the event of someone barging in on you having sex, brandishing a gun, and accusing you of light treason.' Granted, there's nothing really 'light' about it. Kristin moves over to her clothes, which takes her to a few points throughout the room, including retrieving her shorts from Leo's computer desk -- apparently, they were thrown with some degree of force. The young woman stays completely silent as she gets dressed, and when possible, keeps her hands up and away from her body. Come on, Leo, she tries to think at him rather forcefully, using mind bullets made of thoughts. Get me off the hook here. "She- wait, what?" Leo sputters, recoiling as if Louise had just told him that 'Kristin' is, in fact, made of bees. He swings his gaze back and forth between the two women rapid-fire as he struggles to parse this claim, and how absolutely ridiculous it is. Only when Christina begins to dress does Leo cry, "What the fuck are you /talking/ about? She's not a spy, she's a /file clerk!/ Who the hell told you she was a spy?!" Totally ignorant of Soma peeking in from the door, Leo abandons his sheet-covering - it isn't like Louise hasn't seen everything already - to scramble off the bed and advance slowly on the blonde, his hands still held up and out in a placating gesture. "Louise," he repeats, as he does, "Put the gun /down./ You're acting crazy!" When she hears those words, orders to get dressed, Marie pokes her head out a bit further so she can talk without being muffled. "Louise..." Her voice is low, in a sort of stage whisper. She doesn't want to distract the blonde, but she wants to make sure she's heard. "Make sure she doesn't have any weapons in her clothes!" The safety net of a naked spy is gone now, though it does make the entire situation a tiny bit less awkward. Well, at least until Leo stands up. Eyes widen, adn Marie pulls her head back out of the doorway. A few seconds later, she slooooowly peeks back out again. "She's right, Leo!" This time her voice is muffled by the doorframe, since there's no way she wants to show them how red her cheeks are. She's also making a point of looking at 'Kristin' for any signs of sudden movement, rather than at Leo. "I don't know what this is about, but she's telling the truth. I'd be able to feel it if she wasn't." Quantum brainwaves. Marie never had to feel for them when she was so flustered before, but theoretically she should be able to tell what Louise was thinking. There definitely wasn't a sensation that the blonde was lying. "Revive," Louise says, without missing a beat; she keeps her gun trained on Christina, but points it at Leo briefly, saying, "Sit back down. You're not entirely off the hook either, right now." If they were sleeping together -- how close /were/ they? Could Leo have been in on it all along? Moving back toward Christina again as Marie tries her best to reassure Leo that the entire situation is... well, as above board as it could be, Louise walks toward her slowly but surely. The gun goes down, at least for now. "Do you know how much paperwork moves through these ships, Leo? How much /sensitive/ paperwork? She could have seen anything. Troop deployments, base structures..." She slowly pushes 'Kristin' toward the wall and pats her down at Marie's request, saying, "She's a hacker, besides. Having that much time to access the /computers/..." She shakes her head. "She was on the Ptolemaios. Tell him, Christina. I'm not going to ask you another question -- you probably don't know a thing about Celestial Being that's current. But at least tell him." Her voice continues to get colder and firmer -- for one of only a handful of times since that fateful incident, she feels like she's in control of her life. Kristin is pushed up against the wall and her lips betray an 'oof,' if nothing else. Upon further inspection, she appears to be carrying no weapons -- just a standard-issue A-LAWS aPhone in one pocket, which of course would be /useless/ to a computer hacker. Suffice it to say: Meanwhile, if someone were to hide inside the couch in Revive Revival's office and if Revive Revival had genitals, they would totally catch him pounding off. Back in Leo's quarters, though, no one is pounding off -- /no one/. Kristin keeps her arms up, and listens to Louise get sharper and sharper with the way she speaks, culminating in the command to come clean to Leo. Kristin Tsery looks over her shoulder at Louise, making eye contact. And Christina Sierra says, firmly, resolutely, and a little venomously: "I have no idea what you're talking about." Before Leo can launch into his immediate reaction of decrying Revive Revival and everything he stands for, Soma speaks up, and Leo once again recoils in shock. "Soma, what are you-" he begins, torn between turning to face her and turning away from her because, oh right, he's still naked. As Louise goes to search Kristin, Leo covers his shame and busies himself with finding and donning his underwear, which are, to no one's surprise, teal boxer shorts with the A-LAWS swoops on one leg. Once he's at least something resembling decent, he tromps over to where Louise has Kristin shoved against the wall and sets a hand firmly on her shoulder. "She's /not/ a spy," he insists to the blonde, anger creeping into her voice. "And I'm not either, so don't talk to me about, about 'not being off the hook!' /Obviously/, Revive is-" Leo catches himself before he accuses Revive of poisoning his team against him again, and instead goes with, "- /mistaken./ Did he have any proof?" When she sees that Leo has something to cover his shame, Marie slowly pokes her head out more. After a few seconds, she moves over to stand in the doorway, though she doesn't enter the room. She's supposed to be backup here, guarding the place! She even has her square sidearm in a holster strapped to her side, though she doesn't see any need to reach for it right now. "Leo.." Marie doesn't even correct him about using the wrong name. In front of other people, especially a potential spy, it's probably safer that way. "If he's wrong, if it -is- a misunderstanding, then it will be cleared up when she's questioned, won't it?" Marie, the voice of reason. When did that hapen? "...for now, it's not safe for you to stand close to Louise like that. I need to be able to see what's happening." She's a little nervous, but she's still ready to do her duty if she has to. Louise resists the uge to snarl at Leo, instead just reaching into her A-LAWS issue greatcoat with her real hand and shoving Revive's lovely, extensive dossier at Leo wordlessly. She doesn't even bother to explain it -- Revive is a very thorough man (especially when he wants to ruin something), and as such, anything inside is probably more proof than /Louise/ needed... if not necessarily enough For Leo. Her own hand, on /Kristin's/ shoulder, tightens up a little. "I figured you'd say that," she growls, the grip of her cybernetic hand -- of his cybernetic hand -- becoming painful. "So just --" Her hand abruptly lets go -- but it's only for a second, as she brings it up to Kristin's face, pushing her against the wall with the whole of her body and starting to /compress/ with that hand. "Disappear like you should've when we shot down the Ptolemaios!" The pain is not unbearable /yet/ -- Louise knows better. She wants to hear her scream, hear her admit to having been on the Ptolemaios just like Revive's intelligence said, hear her remember its destruction. Louise wants blood, and lots of it -- but she wants it slow. "Hoo~oooooooh?" It seems, as tempers flare and people clothe themselves, someone has managed to steal quietly up in the chaos, a sharply handsome face surrounded by ~beautiful cerulean hair~ thrust into the doorway, above Somarie's head. Isn't that always the way? Let your guard down for one goddamn second, and Michael Trinity. "'scuse me," the tall borderline (heh) psychopath drawls, gently bumping his way past Soma, stepping with surprising silence, head rolling about to take in the room. Completely unaware of things like 'reading the mood', the fifth - fourth now, I suppose - member of GNX helpfully comments, "I~ heard~ shouting~! I was hoping there was a party, or a sports game, but this looks pretty interesting!" Ignoring the fact that people are holding guns on each other, Mike steps around Louise, grinning, to look Christina up and down. LONG AGO Exactly fifteen shots are played from the Trinities's time mingling with Celestial Being, wherein Mike slaps Christina's ass. One shot has him missing, his hand smacking right onto Tieria's crotch - Mike seems willing to roll with it, even as Tieria frowns and pulls up a newspaper, snapping it open in Mike's face. NOW Mike's eyes narrow as he sweeps Christina up and down, tilting his head to lock eyes on her behind with little shame. Abruptly, he straightens, fixing Leo with a sharp look. "...maaaaaaaaaan, you have /got/ to write a how-to book or something, man! Whooo!" Because when a situation can't get any more potentially chaotic-- Michael Trinity is checking out Christina while Christina is struggling with a cybernetic hand gripping her face really the fuck hard. When the EFA took Sumeragi last year -- after both women spent vaguely comatose time at Billy Katagiri's house, Christina posing as Sumeragis's little sister -- Christina never asked questions about what it was like. She didn't want to know, and she was sure Sumeragi didn't want to tell her. But as a cybernetic hand closes around her face and starts to apply pressure, Christina Sierra can't help but wonder if this is how it started for Sumeragi, too. Of course, that wondering happens somewhere in the back of her brain. The primary concern right now is 'ow, my face!' To this end, the brunette's arms come up, grabbing at Louise's arm and praying that it's just the hand that's been souped up, not the whole limb. As the grip on her face tightens, Christina's own grabs become tighter and sharper -- if Louise's arms were uncovered, Christina's fingernails would be leaving deep gouges in her skin. Like the ones on Leo's shoulders. "MMmph! MMMPH! MMGHPH!" Well, that was unexpected. Leo snatches the dossier angrily away from Louise. He doubts she's read it; Revive could have filled this thing with pages of 'a-bloo-bloo-bloo' and she'd take it as gospel. What a fucking prick that guy is, and, somehow, he's got Louise eating out of the palm of his hand. "It'll be fine, So- Marie," Leo insists without looking up from where he's opening the dossier. "Nothing's going to-" The sound of Kristin's head being shoved into the wall is simultaneous with the arrival of Michael Trinity; Leo does not know which is the worse development. "WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHAT THE FUCK?!" Leo shouts, real-ass terror creeping into his voice because oh, hey, apparently Louise has gone /totally insane./ As Michael checks out Christina, Leo throws the dossier to the ground, half-leaps upon Louise from behind, wraps his arms around her waist, and tries to pull her bodily off of poor helpless Kristin. His response to Michael's observation, as he does so, is to shout, "YOU'RE NOT HELPING!!" It takes a moment for Marie to realize that someone is leaning in over her head. She blinks several times and glances up, just in time to see the Trinity as he nudges past her. "Wh.. Michael?" She hasn't really interacted with him as Marie, but she does have some of Soma's memories of him. "Wait, you can't--!" Like she can stop him just by saying something like that. Thump. Marie hears the sound of Christina's head hitting the wall, but she can't see it because -someone- is standing in her way like a person who is not where they should be. "Leo!" This has suddenly gone far, far out of control. Marie knows she's supposed to be backup, but she can't just sit back and let the situation spiral--more like plummet--out of control. Taking a breath, she steps into the room, and can finally see just what's happening. "Louise, wait! You're not supposed to..." Not supposed to -let go of your gun- like that, jeez. What do they teach Warrant Officers nowadays? Quickly crossing the room, Marie places a hand on Leo's shoulder. She doesn't -squeeze- necessarily, but there's definite strength there. Softened in personality or not, she's still a trained Super Soldier. "Leo, stop. Call a security team here and we can get this handled." Goal one: get some more official people here since Leo doesn't seem to believe what's being said. Goal two: get Leo to stop acting to assist a spy. Goal three: get him out of the way so she can do what she's supposed to here! Leo, unfortunately for Louise, is probably not powerful enough to completely get her off of Christina. And on top of that, Michael's here -- definitely a good way to get Louise's adrenaline going even /moreso/. She isn't even brooking this particular intrusion -- she just forcefully shoves Leo aside, shouting, "Get /off/ of me! And to think, I thought you were my boyfriend --" That persistent scratching and grabbing gets Louise's attention, and she eases up just enough to turn Christina's head to the side, at least allowing her to say something more than 'Mmph!' Her crushing grip gets a lot more crushing as she tries to tune out Michael's sudden mental 'presence' in the room. Her fingers start to hook in -- one angling at Christina's eye, the others just digging into flesh hard enough to draw blood. Only after ogling Christina does it begin to sink in what's going on - domestic dispute! Mike rolls his eyes to the side, taking a step back as Louise starts to try and crush Christina's entire facebone, holding his hands up, palms spread. "Busssssted. Man, for a second, I thought you were..." He trails off, rubbing the back of his head as Leo latches on to Louise and gets thrown across the room. Mike knits his hands behind his head, crossing one foot over at the ankle, and leans back until he hits wall. If it were Louise trying to crush another member of the team, well, that'd be one thing. But who the hell's /this?/ "Whoooee, when you dig yourself a hole, Leo, you dig /deep./" Christina's head is turned no less roughly than any other part of the treatment Louise is affording her. Her skull thunks against the wall again, and it does hurt, but there's a lot of other head-related pain going around and she really can't focus on one or two little bumps -- even if they ache. The spy continues to claw at Louise's arm as the grip tightens again. There's a bit of a grace period that comes from Leo trying to interfere, but then it ends, and Christina's hell truly begins. Her pretty face is torn. Louise's cybernetic hand doesn't even leave gashes in the traditional, laceratory sense. These things aren't even gouges. The closest analogy is probably 'bloody facial trenches' from the way the inhuman fingertips press in and then drag along tan skin, crumpling it and pulling it up like a strip-mining operation. And then there's the shame of human anatomy. A disgusting sound rises from Christina's face when it becomes evident -- through a practical demonstration -- that Christina's eye socket is not capable of fitting both an eyeball /and/ Louise's finger. That's when Christina really starts screaming, one of her hands coming up to frantically press against Louise's face and try to push her away. Leo's built for speed and punching things in the face, not weight lifting... especially when that weight doesn't want to be lifted. When Louise starts shoving him off, he provides resistance right up until the bit about being her boyfriend, when surprise loosens his grip. He staggers several feet and half-collapses against his bed, sort of flailing helplessly for a moment before he clambers back to his feet. "Whoa, whoa, /boyfriend?/" he gapes; he starts to move towards Louise again, but stops when Somarie sets her hand on his shoulder, shooting a quick glance back at her. His expression twists into a grimace again, and he turns back to Louise and corrects, not nearly as gently as he probably should, "Louise, /we're not a couple./ Okay? We never were." The crazy's just getting worse and worse. First she's choking file clerks, now she's deciding they're a couple, it's just ridiculoud. "Now /let her go/, she didn't /do anything/, Revive's a lying piece of shit! He's just trying to make us fight!" OKay now she's really screaming and oh god that's blood and oh jesus oh /shit/- "Louise, STOP!!" Leo demands, wrenching at Soma's grip as he tries to lunge forwards and leap upon the blonde again. "Michael, do something!!" Why does nobody listen to the voice of reason? The scream is disturbing enough that Marie cringes. She has to do something. She can't just stand here... What would Soma do? Soma would probably shove Leo away and yell at him to listen to her, then feel physically ill about it and apologize later. Maybe that's a good idea. Taking a breath, she gives him a shove aside and releases his shoulder. Nothing too hard, but she needs him to pay attention. "Leo. Call a security detail -now-!" Marie, at least, won't feel sick about being a little rough with a superior officer. "Or Michael... -someone- do that. Louise!" Whether Leo listens to her or not isn't something that Marie pays attention to now. She's mostly certain that Michael won't but... can't hurt to ask, right? Shifting sideways, she moves against the wall so she can look the crazed blonde right in the face. "Louise, we can't arrest the spy like this." Marie reaches out and puts a hand on the arm trying to tear out Christina's eyes, but... it's surprisingly gentle, given the circumstances. She's not trying to pull it free, but to get Louise's attention focused on her. "Look at me, Louise. We're going to call a security detail to take care of it so they can interrogate her. Right?" Louise realizes, in an instant, the extent to which she's been used. That's why Leo was sleeping around on her, she realizes -- he didn't even think he was. He was just using her, just like he was probably just using 'Kristin,' just like he was just using Asuka. He never cared about her -- he may have been her soul, but she sure wasn't his. As Leo attempts to lunge toward her and Marie tries to pull him back, Louise -- without even thinking -- just swings her free arm out toward him, smashing him dead-on in the side of the head with what would be called a spinning knuckle by the particularly charitable. She can't even think of anything to say anymore -- not to torment Christina, not to talk back to Leo... The Warrant simply has nothing to say. Right now, the only thing worth doing is taking that first real step toward revenge. With Allelujah, Leo stopped her -- or more accurately, had control of the sitaution enough that it simply didn't happen. Not this time. She shakes her head wordlessly as Marie places that gentle hand on her arm, still saying nothing. Her grip momentarily relaxes, sliding down Kristin's face toward her throat -- for an instant, it must seem like the agony is over. It is at almost exactly that moment -- that moment that things seem like they might just be looking up --that Louise begins to push on the back and side of Christina's neck. The Warrant's not sure whether she's trying to snap the spine or crumple the throat -- and doesn't really care which, either. She just wants to feel Christina die in her hands, immediately if not sooner. Leo instructs Michael to do something, and the young man actually looks crestfallen as he peels himself from the wall, hands unknitting. "Alright, alright, damn." His right hand flicks into his pocket. --withdrawing a stick of gum, which the Trinity casually pops into his mouth as chaos continues to erupt in the room. Quantum brainwaves are probably going crazy, but Mike is a lower class of Innovade - he lacks the proper sensitivity to read them from any but his deceased family, and the only ones he's giving /off/ are a faint sense of feeling put-upon. He glides to the door, holds one hand up to his mouth, and shouts, "Heeeeeeeey!" A beat. "Heeeeeeeeeeey!" Another beat. "Well, that shoulda done it." He glances over his shoulder to see that the threat of security hasn't abated Louise any, and Mike may be retarded but not quite enough not to read context clues. He does the next best thing to trying to stop her - his foot reaches over, snags the arm of Leo's computer chair, and rolls it over to him. Mike then seizes onto it with both hands, pitching it at the back of Louise's legs. His expression is one of mild focus, the tip of his tongue poking out of the right side of his mouth, lips pressed together. Leo doesn't abandon Plan: Restrain Louise even when Soma shoves and shouts at him; at this point, he is sort of freaking out. He's trained to handle a lot of things, but 'wingman being too rough with innocent file clerk, tearing her eyeball out' is not one of them, and so he had advanced to the most natural means of crisis management, which is panicking. As it so happens, he sort of dashes right into Louise's fist. The blow strikes him in the side of the head, just underneath the ear. Fun fact: the jaw is not designed for lateral movement, and that much force (even if Louise's non-cybernetic arm is a skinny girl arm) hurts really, /really/ bad. The fact that Leo is, despite his relatively new underwear model build, a frail-boned spacenoid, certainly doesn't help, and might have a lot to do with the sharp *crack* that occurs upon impact. Leo doesn't exactly drop like a brick, but he does turn his lunge into a sort of sideways stagger-collapse; he stumbles several feet, slumps against the wall, and slides down it. He's obviously out of it; he can barely even manage to gape at Louise as she continues crushing Kristin's head, or at Michael as he plays computer chair Louise bowling, or at Marie as she does her level bset to keep the situation from turning into a snuff film. He can't even manage the presence of mind to wipe at the blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. Leo has devolved into full-on Trauma Paralysis Mode. He is probably down for the count. Christina Sierra doesn't even get last words. She's still screaming -- it's hard not to when your eye is hanging out of your head and you look like a puma just took a drunken, off-kilter swipe at one side of your face -- and then, suddenly, she's not. As Louise's mechanical hand slams into her throat, it comes with force not unlike a Neo Buick. The air is simply not there to draw upon anymore, and all Christina can get out is a "ghck" that signifies her life ends with a whimper, not a bang. Well. A whimper and a 'crack.' Because Louise doesn't really have to choose between crushing the woman's windpipe and breaking her neck. She manages to achieve both just by pushing hard enough, smashing through soft tissue until she reaches spine, and then snapping clear through that until she's essentially using her hand to pin two layers of flesh to the wall. Christina's head lolls forward, hanging unnaturally as if her skull were mounted on a piece of rope. When Louise releases the girl's face, Marie relaxes slightly. Maybe she's listening to reason. The damage can be fixed...probably. And security will have someone to interrogate. "There, that--" That is not what she meant by letting go of her face and -you know it- young lady. "Louise, stop!" Her grip on the horrible cybernetic arm grows tighter, and she even puts forth some effort to pulling the hand away, but she didn't count on how -strong- that arm would be. She's confident that she'd be able to force Louise's arm free of Christina's neck, so she prepares for another try... And the sound of a crack reaches her ear. Marie doesn't turn her head completely, but she does see the spy's head drop forward out of the corner of her eye. The urgency suddenly seems much less needed. "...let go, Louise. I... I think she's dead." Marie is a Super Soldier. While she didn't experience the training herself, she can see most of it from Soma's memories, almost like digging through a dusty old movie archive. She's not faint of heart, but she still feels a bit weak in the stomach. At least it's finally over. Well, save for sudden chair intervention. No sooner has Louise gotten the first tiny morsel of her revenge than a desk chair strikes her in the back of the legs -- but between the adrenaline and the sudden rush of endorphins, she manages to stay standing. It's not exactly an elegant stand, and it gets her to drop Christina... but by then, of course, it's too late. The spy's dead body slumps to the ground, planting itself face-first in half-eaten pizza after the computer chair deflects its tumble. The situation finally begins to catch up with Louise... but perhaps the most disconcerting thing is that just the same, she doesn't really seem to care at all. She glances toward the trauma-paralyzed Leo, then toward Michael, and finally to Marie... before saying, voice almost eerily flat, "I'm going to -- report to Captain Revive." Forcibly yanking her hand away from Marie, she moves toward the door, hell-bent on doing just that. Perhaps most disconcerting -- though likely not to Michael, whose ability to receive is as weak as Louise's is strong -- is how happy Louise feels, despite the flatness of her tone, despite the insistent efforts of everyone in the room to stop her. 'Mother, father -- that was for you!' plays in Louise's head, again and again. She is, despite her efforts to keep her insistent comrades from actually seeing so with their eyes, /ecstatic/. The crack reverberates through the room. One is traumatized, another is disgusted, another is ecstatic... Michael Trinity is unaffected. The death of a human being rolls over the incomplete Innovade with the same kind of reaction one has to a gentle breeze when the weather report was something like 'There are all kinds of gentle breezes out there, you are definitely going to feel one, one hundred percent.' If anything, he looks more disappointed that the chair didn't bowl Louise over hilariously than anything else. He clicks his tongue, and tosses his blue hair back out of his face. "Oh well!" He barks, shrugging his shoulds, arms out wide with palms up. Smoothly, he steps to the side, his eyes searching out Louise's. A smile spreads on his face. Something in that expression reminds him of his sister. He watches her go, the smile briefly cracking into a grin. Marie wants to run after Louise. She wants to stop her. "Louise..." Looking up slowly, she frowns. "I... you know where to find me later. Okay?" Hopefully they can talk about what happened later. Marie glances toward the body, reaches a hand out toward it, then thinks better of it. Shuddering somewhat, she lifts her head and digs for her radio. As she does, golden eyes fall upon Michael Trinity. At first, it's a glare. Did he really try to call for help? But then, she thinks how quickly this all happens. Even if he did call for help when she first asked, they wouldn't have gotten there in time. And, well.. he -did- try to stop Louise, even if he was too late. "...thanks for trying." Her voice is sincere, though disappointed. She didn't want to see her friend's hands bloodied like this. After a pause, and taking a deep breath, Marie speaks into her radio, "Security team and medical team to Captain Leo Stenbuck's quarters." She had hoped that a medical team wouldn't be needed at -all-, but they'd have to declare the spy dead, as well as see to Leo. "... okay," Louise says, glancing back toward Marie. There's not a hint of repentance or regret in those eyes as she looks back -- it'll probably be the only thing that she wants to talk about when she next sees the Super Soldier... but not in the way that Marie likely hopes. And like that, she's gone -- Revive told her to take care of it, and she did. If he doesn't already know the results, she's sure he'll want to hear all about them. Michael doesn't notice Soma's initial glare, crouched down by Leo. He lifts his hand and smacks one side of his face, and then the other - lightly, enough to redden his cheeks but not any further. "Dude. Duuuuude." He flicks his nose, probably drawing some inane mutterings. "Yeah, yer out." Thoughtfully, he reaches up, and sets Leo's jaw back into place (~tshukk~) while he's still too mentally delirious to register the spike of agony. Michael stands, and wipes drool off the heel of his palm. Mike's copper eyes are entirely unburdened as he turns to Soma, hands sliding into his pockets. "Yeah, I'd've totally used the emergency band, but they got me on radio probation after I prank called a couple fires. /Hilarious./" Fifty. Fifty fires, in three days. Of course the fifty-first one someone else reported was an /actual/ fire - they're still refurbishing the gym. Mike may have set that fire. He wanders past Soma, crouching right by the corpse, tapping ex-Christina's neck and lifting her by the hair. A low whistle. "Yeah, she's done." He drops her back on the pizza, and stands, dusting his hands this time. "I guess our little Louise is growin' up. D'you see that look in 'er eyes? Hahahaaaaa, man." Marie opens her mouth to say something about not disturbing the body. Then she just sighs as she realizes it doesn't matter. "..yeah. I guess." She turns away slightly and closes her eyes, leaning back against the wall. Then she remembers that Christina was killed less than a foot from where she's leaning, and she quickly moves to a different part of the room to lean. "It's okay, it's not your fault. You can go if you want... I'll wait here and make sure the medical team looks at Leo." She already knows she's going to be questioned, and Soma's memories tell her that will go a lot easier if Michael isn't there. Michael is briefly distracted, staring intently at Christina's perfectly limp neck, distended crazily from where a neck should be on a prone person. Who knows what thoughts drift through his mind? His head snaps up, suddenly, back into the world, and he looks confused at Soma. "Huh? Yeah, I know it ain't my fault. Why would it be? She's the one who went all crazy!" He grins, like he just made a joke, and stuffs a hand back into his pocket. The other rubs at the back of his neck - specifically, his collar of significant import, a lower profile one than what he wore before A-LAWS split from the EFA. "Yeah, I hear ya." He smacks his gum against the roof of his mouth, a loud, jarring sound. "I'll be in the mess, I think they got spaghetti goin'." He makes his way out, completely unaware of what he just said. Category:Logs